Got back in to this hobby about a year ago. Currently only have a 20 gallon tank, which houses 12 fishes, making it a community tank.
Things have been great but have to admit I have lost some due to not knowing what I was doing.
Fast forward and things have calmed down, without any others dying. Nitrate has been a constant battle which has led me to weekly water changes (50%). Also as of late but cutting how much I feed them in basically in half.
What it seems to be happening is that one of my Goldfish who is currently all white (used to be gray) is now turning orange. Is this normal?
Wow, amazing information. So there is one medium size airatior that sits on the bottom of the tank, producing bubbles. Also have an AquaClear HoB filter, rated for 30 gallons. Also a Green machibe but it only runs overnight on a timer
Yeah the goldfish were acquired since they are hardy as well as only being .75 cents! Been nice to see them grow bigger. But the store person said that they can be counted as “3-4” fish and I probably have overcrowded it.
Also have added some live plants several weeks ago but not sure if they are helping or not.
Testing for nitrates with a liquid test kit produces either dark orange to dark red results, which is bad
tl;dr even with the best filtration, you’ll probably still need to increase water changes to keep the goldfish.
*Typically if you have measurable nitrates, the ammonia cycle is where it should be.
Just a quick primer: there are specific bacteria that oxidize each form of nitrogen into less toxic molecules. Nitrosomonas oxidizes the ammonia into nitrite. Nitrobacter oxidizes the nitrite into nitrate.
Its likely that the necessary bacteria is healthy and in sufficient numbers, but filtration/flow is lacking – and this is the key point – for the bio-load in your setup. Water changes will be the only fix here.
I’d test for nitrite and ammonia just to rule out loss of one or more nitrifying bacteria. If you have measurable ammonia, you could step up water changes (frequency or volume or both), or remove the grubby, stinky goldfish.
Back in the 90’s, the local aquarium hobby store where I worked had around 1k feeder comets in a 55gal tank in the back. It was plumbed to a massive wet/dry sump that was full of “bio-balls” (the height of filter technology at the time) and pumped by a 1.5HP pool pump. IIRC, the total water volume was over 125gal. We had to change the water in that system every week to keep the water clear and clean.
Maybe its snobby of me, but it never seemed worth it to me to keep goldfish. I prefer Mollies for hardy fish, and they have more personality for my $.
Bonus: now I live in Central America, and swordtails and mollies nibble my toes when I swim in the rivers and waterfalls here! I would love to open a hobby store, but not sure if the government here allows it.
Amazing write up / information!
Any chance the store was Jacks Aquariums? Loved going there as a kid.
So all other perameters are good - (pH,nitrates and ammonia. Its just the nitrates that are bad.
I do have another 20 gallon tank. Would it be worthwhile and moving the three goldfish over here? Sounds like it wouldn’t be a good idea.
Once again thank you for the information
As the other commenter posted, a 20g just isn’t big enough to support them. But the fish in the existing 20 sure would appreciate if the goldies moved!
I worked at a different shop.